


Hiding the pack of Newports doesn't make you clean

by poisonedlace



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Am i projecting? maybe, Amanda's a bitch, Amanda's an asshole, But he's not dead I promise, Canon-Typical Violence, Cole is Connor and Nines' little brother, Connor's a mess as a human, It starts off dark and it's gonna stay dark y'all, It's a reverse au, We haven't seen Hank yet it's only chapter 1 folks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-25 00:16:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21347146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonedlace/pseuds/poisonedlace
Summary: Connor Anderson is an absolute mess. Always has been, always will be. But he's trying. He quits smoking every two weeks and spends a shit ton on whiskey as an apology to Tina, calls Nines' phone every week with updates even though Nines never picks up, and all he wants is his family back."Connor hasn’t slept in three days and he really is too tired to give a shit about the police report sitting in front of him that hasn’t been finished in - you guessed it - three days. The report is definitely not what’s been keeping him from sleeping, but it doesn’t help to know he has all this work he can’t finish because his fucking back hurts."
Relationships: Connor & Upgraded Connor | RK900, Hank Anderson & Connor, Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 27





	Hiding the pack of Newports doesn't make you clean

Connor hasn’t slept in three days and he really is too tired to give a  _ shit _ about the police report sitting in front of him that hasn’t been finished in - you guessed it -  _ three days _ . The report is definitely not what’s been keeping him from sleeping, but it doesn’t help to know he has all this work he can’t finish because his  _ fucking _ back hurts. 

Amanda wouldn’t be happy, hearing him complain like that, but she can’t hear his thoughts, not that she could hear him out loud, since he’s been the only person in the precinct since midnight, and it’s currently three am.

He sighs loudly, and pulls himself up from his vaguely pathetic position slumped over his desk. Staring at the nicotine stains on his fingers, a well of hatred swells up that takes the rest of his limited willpower to squish down, and he decides he’s gonna have to break his promise to Tina. He’ll send her a bottle of whiskey later.

He snags his leather jacket off the chair and turns his terminal off, resolving to finish it when he gets back to the precinct in three hours. Three’s always been a comforting number for Connor, as long as he cares to remember - which isn’t long, he doesn’t think back to the accident or before, but oh well - and the thought of three hours calms the shaking in his hands. He likes to pretend the shaking is just cigarette cravings, but it’s not, not really.

He leans on the wall outside of the precinct, lighting a cigarette, not even bothering to reach for his inhaler as he coughs through the first drag. He watches the mist from his breath and the smoke from his cigarette curl up and away.

He wishes he could be like that, just go up up up and disappear when it’s time. But he can’t, and it’s an unrealistic delusion, as his therapist would say. She would, if he ever bothered to show up to appointments. They’d gotten through the first session, and she’d explained that the way he sometimes thinks about just not being there - suicidal ideation, it’s called - isn’t okay, and he needed to work on it. He never called for another appointment.

He’s had enough people tell him he was crazy. His first grade teachers before he was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD, his childhood bullies when Connor explained the way his thought patterns worked, excited to be talked to instead of hit, and- And Nines, when Connor had woken up in the hospital after It happened, a breathing tube down his throat and tears forming from pain.

He didn’t need another person to tell him he was insane. He knows that most people don’t think about whether they could get hit by a bus and still make it to work on time, most people don’t worry about being attacked, don’t have a breakdown whenever they’re near any type of ledge. Connor is messed up and he doesn’t need people to tell him.

The cigarette burns out and Connor sighs. He has to go home. It’s been too long and Sumo, his belgian malinois puppy, needs to be taken care of.

Connor drops the butt into the ashtray - he’s depressed, not a douche. Don’t litter, kids. - and walks stiffly to his car. It’s old, still manual, a six-speed stick-shift Chevy Impala, but it’s carried him through everything, and it’ll carry him until he dies.

Home is a one-story three bedroom three bathroom house that hasn’t been cleaned in a while and has the faint smell of wet dog. Well, that’s the house.  _ Home _ is currently a 45-pound puppy who tackles him at the speed of light as soon as he steps through the door.

Nines had wanted a cat, when he lived here. But both Anderson twins, as well as their little brother, had an allergy, so when Cole had brought a little squirmy puppy who didn’t have a home back from an alleyway near the school, they’d agreed to keep him.

And now Sumo was the only thing Connor had left. He was meticulously cared for, it was a borderline compulsion for Connor to brush and wash him once every three days. Taking him to the groomer’s once a month is basically Connor’s only extra expense aside from cigarettes and I’m-sorry-for-smoking-again presents for Tina. 

Connor downs a cup of water, feeds Sumo, and collapses on his bed in a grumbling heap. The bottle of Vicodin sits untouched from where Nines had placed it three months ago, on top of the handwritten notes he took on how to use it.

Connor barely looks at it, even on his worst pain days. He knows the risks of starting an opioid painkiller and he knows that it’s the worst possible thing he could do to himself. He’d rather rip his skin off piece by piece than become some junkie, begging on the streets for another hit. He’s got that much left to him. Even if Nines hasn’t answered a single one of his calls and the CPS people say he’s not in a fit condition to be near Cole, he still wants to be someone they won’t despise, even if he despises himself. 

He cuts off that train of thought where it begins, and decides that he’ll toss the bottle in his medicine cabinet and grab some Tylenol instead in the morning. For now he falls asleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Oops. I'm not dead y'all just totally unmotivated. Have this....whatever it is I wrote it at three am a month ago and tbh I don't hate it.


End file.
